Apple dreams of “insane” Samsung pay out

One of the reasons why Appleand Samsung cannot agree on a licensing scheme and stop patent trolling each other is because Jobs’ Mob is insisting on silly money.

Patent expert Florian Mueller has found some court documents which shows that Apple’s reality distortion field makes the outfit think that its five software patents are worth a whopping $40 a device.

Mueller, who has favoured Apple in the past said that this is the first situation in which he does not merely disagree with Apple but is “wondering whether it has lost its mind”.

He said that Apple’s damages theory for the trial that will begin in less than three weeks is an objective insanity, and he wondered why Judge Koh allowed Apple to present it to the jury.

In the paperwork a “damages expert” will argue on Apple’s behalf that, if the parties had acted reasonably and rationally in a hypothetical negotiation, Samsung would have agreed to pay $40 per phone or tablet sold as a total royalty. The expert said that Samsung would simply have raised its prices accordingly.

“$40 per unit for five software patents. Give me a break. Reality distortion would be a total understatement for this,” Mueller said.

Two years ago, after someone was awarded that per-patent-per-unit figure against Research In Motion, Mueller said that such damages/royalty figures would make smartphone unaffordable.

An $8 per patent price take would mean that the potential licensing cost per smartphone would amount to a million dollars per device.

Either way if Apple has this particular number in its head, then it is no wonder that Samsung told it go forth and multiply and why they cannot bury the hatchet.

It might also explain why Judge Koh is having so much trouble forcing the two sides to come to an agreement together.